It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “Hello Vietnam” by Johnny Wright

November 3, 1965
“Hello Vietnam” by Johnnie Wright
#1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, October 23 – November 12, 1965

Five decades on, when we think of pop music associated the Vietnam War, we mostly think of the songs protesting the fighting overseas and pleading for peace. Most of those hits we remember — songs like “Fortunate Son,” “Give Peace a Chance,” “War,” and “What’s Going On”– were released in the late ’60s and early ’70s, after the tide of public opinion had begun turning against the seemingly interminable conflict. In the early years of American involvement in Vietnam, however, from the deployment of regular ground troops in 1965 until the Tet Offensive in 1968, negative songs about the war were generally limited to niche artists, not pop stars. Even Bob Dylan, the decade’s pre-eminent protest singer, had largely abandoned political music by 1965, with albums Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited shifting his focus to personal themes and densely poetic lyrics. 

At the start of the war, the majority of Americans believed that involvement in Vietnam was necessary to stop communism from spreading to US shores. As a result, songs that presented a positive view of the war and the US military tended to draw favor with the record-buying public. (The one exception is Barry McGuire’s 1965 #1 hit “Eve of Destruction,” and even then, its muddled point-of-view makes it questionable as a coherent anti-war statement.) The most famous of these pro-military Vietnam-era songs is SSgt. Barry Sadler’s “Battle of the Green Berets,” which would become the biggest-selling song in the US in 1966. Before that, however, singer Johnny Wright topped the country charts with an even more explicit declaration of support for the war.

Johnny Wright (originally spelled Johnnie) had been a mainstay of country music since the late ’30s, performing for over two decades as Johnnie & Jack with partner Jack Anglin. The duo scored a number of hits in the ’50s, most notably 1951’s “Poison Love” and 1954’s country #1 “(Oh Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely.” Wright had an even more famous partnership, however, with Kitty Wells, the first female superstar of country music and his wife for nearly three quarters of a century, from 1937 until his death in 2011.

After Anglin died in a car crash in 1963, en route to a memorial service for Patsy Cline, Wright continued as a solo performer, earning a moderate country hit in 1964 with “Walkin’, Talkin’, Cryin’, Barely Beatin’ Broken Heart.” The following year, however, Wright released the song that remains his greatest pop cultural legacy. “Hello Vietnam” tells the sad story of a young soldier who has to ship off and leave his sweetheart behind. Despite his heartbreak, however, the soldier is a model patriot, prizing his country over his personal life: “America has heard the bugle call/And you know it involves us one and all.” Lest the soldier’s departing words to his beloved seem too subtle, Wright solemnly reiterates the song’s message in a spoken-word verse: “ I hope and pray someday the world will learn/The fires we don’t put out will bigger burn/We must save freedom now at any cost/Or someday our own freedom will be lost.”

Despite its somewhat awkward phrasing, “Hello Vietnam” was an early success for prolific songwriter Tom T. Hall, a few years before penning Jeannie C. Riley’s blockbuster 1968 hit “Harper Valley PTA” and launching his own recording career. It also features Wright’s wife Kitty Wells on prominent backing vocal, her plain, somewhat strident voice melding well with the unpolished folkiness of her husband’s. Both Wright and Wells date from an earlier, more rural era of country music, which gives their message a down-home sincerity that contrasts with the increasingly slick crossover sounds of ’60s country.

In fact, despite topping the country charts, “Hello Vietnam” never crossed over into the pop charts at all. Wright’s career didn’t seem to get much traction from the song’s success, either; he never had another major hit, and fell off the country charts entirely after 1968. What made the song a success at the time — its topical relevance, affirming that America was doing the right thing involving itself in a foreign war — is the same thing that makes it worth examining 50 years on. While the popularity of “Hello Vietnam” represents the early flush of approval for the Vietnam War, it would soon become an anomaly, as the conflict dragged on for years with no end in sight.

It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.

Sally O'Rourke

Sally O’Rourke works in an office and sometimes writes about music. She blogs about every song to ever top the Billboard Hot 100 (in order) at No Hard Chords. She has also contributed to The Singles Jukebox, One Week // One Band, and PopMatters. Special interests include girl groups, soul pop, and over-analyzing chord changes and lyrics as if deciphering a secret code. She was born in Baton Rouge and lives in Manhattan. Her favorite Nugget is “Liar, Liar” by The Castaways.